


upregulation

by copperiisulfate



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-30 12:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11463789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: How do you kill a living thing?Easy.





	upregulation

 

How do you kill a living thing?

 _Easy,_ his father had said, squashing spiders between his fingertips.

It never came as easy to Saruhiko, and, for a time, this felt like failure.

(Slowly, artlessly, he learns the skill in time.

It is a killing of different sorts, to different lengths and different ends, but killing all the same.)

 

*

 

Misaki is human in ways that Saruhiko will never be and he knows this.

Misaki is blinding bright, more vibrant and vivacious than anything Fushimi has ever seen or come to know.

It was annoying at first, awe-inspiring later.

Eventually, the awe wore out some, exhausted him.

Or, at least, it started to make sense.

Everything was relative.

When you knew nothing of light, nothing of warmth, the smallest spark, the mere flicker of a flame appeared as a conflagration, warm, illuminating, all-consuming.

 

*

 

Vulnerability is not an option, he will realize later, far too late in some ways.

(He would realize the fault in this realization much later, but one usually has to suffer the abysmal consequences of one's misconceptions before realizing they are misconceptions and so, later, he will wonder if he should have been faulted for it.

Because he will still have a long, long way to go, he will think that he should have been faulted for it.

That is the way these things go after some time. Practiced and habitual.

Someone only ever has to say it enough for it to become true.

Words have power no matter where they come from, no matter how untrue.

Words have power simply by virtue or existing, of being spoken aloud.

An idea is planted like a seed, becomes deep-rooted at the core, and perhaps it is the one sort of sentient thing that does not die so easy, if ever at all.)

Vulnerability isn't an option because it implies surrender of control and that is at times the only thing that keeps him steady and still on his own two feet, keeps him from unraveling at the seams.

 

*

 

(How do you kill a living thing?)

He burns the skin around his clavicle in a show of: _This is who I am and you cannot fix it. I cannot believe you ever dared to try. This is what you get for your naivete. Now run. Save yourself._  

He does not know, will never know, if the thought is directed at Misaki or himself.

(Easy.)

This is the instinct that keeps him alive, feels impossible to turn off after a point: _Run, as fast and as far away as possible._

_Save yourself. Save yourself. Save yourself. Save yourself._

 

*

 

If vulnerability was one thing, then love was something else altogether, a sort of mythologized dream, the way some children believed in Santa Claus and adults chuckled about their naivete in hushed voices behind closed doors, another innocuous lie propagated to shelter the innocent from the ugliness of the world.

He does not think he was made for it.  His neuronal synapses could never make sense of it.

 

*

 

 _It's not your fault you're like this,_ Misaki had said to him once, standing shoulder to shoulder, by the stove-top in their kitchen. _Everything will be better from now on, and I know that you'll be just fine._

Saruhiko had laughed and laughed and this was when they were still friends. Anyone else and he would have walked out. _Who do you think you are? You don't know shit about me._

But Misaki did know and that made it worse.

 _I don't think I can do it,_ he doesn't say, because he doesn't want to disappoint Misaki, doesn't want to break his heart and his endless faith in the universe.

He wants Misaki to keep fighting the good fight, keep on believing that the world is fair and that things get better and that everyone will ultimately and eventually be just fine in the end.

 _I don't think its something that can be fixed,_ he doesn't say, and partly because he wants so much to believe that Misaki is right. That there is magic in the world. That they can do anything if they are together, no matter how totally fucking ridiculous it sounds.

He wants to believe it with a force that could bring back the dead. And he tries. For so long, he tries. But it's not enough and it is so fucking unfair that he cannot do it. He finally figures that his dead are better off dead anyhow.

 

*

 

The punchline is the discovery that he did in fact love himself, enough to survive at any rate, and sometimes that feels like a lot more than he'd ever thought possible.

Sometimes, the thought that follows is: _But at what cost?_

 

*

 

There's no winning, not really.

When Munakata Reisi knights him into his clan and his innermost circle, there's no real sense of victory in it.

Most of his men look at him like he is to be feared.

 _Good,_ he thinks. They'd be stupid not to.

 _It speaks volumes about you,_ Munakata says to him once. _How many of the knives attached to your person do you sleep with, I wonder._

And then: _It's okay. It's a rhetorical question,_  the bastard has the audacity to laugh, with a glint in his eye no less. _I don't know if I want to know the answer anyway._

 

*

 

When Suoh Mikoto dies, Saruhiko feels ill and dreams of Misaki running him through with a sword for weeks.

_How do you kill a living thing?_

Munakata Reisi did not make it seem so easy.

 

*

 

Misaki forgives him, which isn't really so surprising at the end of the day.

Saruhiko takes longer to forgive him in turn but eventually manages it, never mind that it is a slow affair.

That he manages to forgive himself is perhaps the most trying road.

 

*

 

 _You've been through a lot,_  Misaki says to him once, long after everything.

 _We all have,_ he says, matter of fact. It sounds the way he feels: distant, objective, tired at best - no more and no less.

He dreams of flames, swords, the click-clack of a skateboard, the bustling dining hall in Scepter 4 and a low-lit bar with its echoing guitar.

He goes weeks, then months, without dreaming of his father.

 

 


End file.
